Subterranean Life

If you want to heal Saskia, and you do, you'll have to go great lengths to do so. Those lengths include finding a plant known as immortelle. It should be located within the mines, but you need better information than that.

(LEFT) 'Visit Zoltan and his friends at the inn to learn about the closed mine shaft, which you will soon need to explore.' (RIGHT) 'The mines are crawling with rotfiend foes.'

Start by finding Zoltan, who is staying at the inn. When you meet with him, his friends are also present. Let them buy you a drink, then talk to them about the immortelle and they'll tell you that it can be found in the mines, which are closed. Your conversation leads to their offer to help you with the mines.

Head outside after the meeting, and next look for Cecil Burdon. You'll find him near the top of the city, not far from the entrance to the mines. When you talk to him, you'll access the side quest, He, Works on in the Mines! and you will gain access to the shaft. Note before you enter that the going can be dark. You'll want a few potions to provide night vision, or you'll need to be ready to stumble about with poor visibility. You should also bring along at least five bombs, so that you can complete the terms of the side quest as you explore. This is your best chance.

Descend through the mines. The dwarves will be at your side, fighting to make things easier on you. That's good, because you'll be going up against rotfiends. They have pretty strong melee attacks, plus they'll explode in a harmful manner once you drain their life meters. Back away when you see them holding their heads, as an explosion is imminent. Try to use magic to keep them at bay when there are several to worry about, then move in and quickly slash them when you're down to only one or two. Let the dwarves do the heavy work, if possible.

(LEFT) 'Back away from the rotfiends when they start holding their heads or you will be caught up in the bloody blast when they explode.' (RIGHT) 'Remember that a fight against three rotfiends at once is a fight you are unlikely to win.'

The first group of monsters will attack you almost immediately. Defeat them and you have several choices about how to proceed. You want to explore every passage as you work through this mine. It's easy to miss, but take the passage sharply to your right first. At the end, you can kill some rotfiends and find a key on a corpse. If you have bombs, you can also move toward the hole against the back wall and press the button indicated on-screen to produce an explosion that closes the hole. That helps with your efforts on the Hey, Works on in the Mines! side quest.

Now go back to the first main room and explore the additional routes, starting with any that have wooden planking to walk along. You can find a diagram for the Red Meteorite Silver Sword in a chest along one fork in the path, and the other side leads to what is currently a dead end (there's a locked door you can't yet open). Return to the main room and take the last branch that you haven't followed, the one that would have been toward the left as you first entered that room. Follow that path and you'll find more rotfiends ahead of another doorway.

Pass through that door and you'll find the largest group of rotfiends yet. Even with a bunch of dwarves by your side, this group is lethal. It's astonishing how capable they are of surrounding you and throwing you into a pattern where you can do nothing but take damage from all sides without so much as the opportunity to swing your sword. You want to avoid that situation at all costs, and you should be especially careful to set up a good magical attack or some strong defensive measures as you deal with the group, and try not to move too far forward so that (hopefully) not all of the rotfiends will join the battle at once.

Head back the way you came but instead of going straight ahead and through the door you entered along this route, look just to its right. There's another door leading in that direction. Head along that route, using the key that you found earlier in the mine, and you'll come across more of the rotfiends. Defeat them in the usual manner and continue along the winding path they guard. As you go, lighting the torches will make it easier to later tell where you've been, plus it will give you more light as you battle the rotfiends.

(LEFT) 'If you want to find the key to the store room, you will have to carefully make your way along a shaft lined with traps.' (RIGHT) 'A bullvore waits at the bottom of the shaft, just ahead of the immortelle plants.'

Through another door you'll find another fork in the path but the right fork is blocked. Continue forward and toward the left, into a wider area where you'll reach another fork. This time, the obstruction to your right is a locked door. Head left for now and near the end of that route, you'll find more rotfiend resistance and another corpse. Search the corpse for another key, and make sure that you head to the end of the tunnel to find another hole that you can collapse with one of your bombs.

Now backtrack to the locked door and open it with the key that you found. As you head along this path, you'll find an area that widens to allow numerous rotfiends to attack. Among them are a few of the greater variety, which can hit you several times in a row as you watch helplessly, so be careful not to enter any swarm of enemies unless you absolutely must. Pick them off from the sides.

You can then head either to the left or right. For now, head along the left path leading onward from that room. You'll find the lower shaft key on the body. Backtrack and this time head right. There's another split in the path with one route leading left blocked by a locked door. Though you can open that door with the locked shaft key, you should first head along the other of those two paths and watch out for traps lain across the floor as you go. Remember that you can use your medallion to easily detect them. Eventually, you'll find a dead-end area with a corpse. Investigate the corpse to find a storehouse key.

Backtrack to the locked door now and pass through it only when you're ready for a fight. As you head around that passage, you'll find blood on the path. Further, you'll witness a scene as some rotfiends and a bullvore attack. The latter is the real threat, but the rotfiends make it impossible to safely attack him because they'll pick at you from the sides like annoying flies as the mostly useless dwarves get in the way and prevent you from easily retreating. Back up along the path and kill the rotfiends while steering clear of the slower but more lethal bullvore. He won't follow you far up the path you just descended, but the rotfiends will. When only the bullvore is left, mount an aggressive attack on him and chop slowly through his impressively thick hide. When you finally defeat him, you can pick the immoretelle from the plants. Make sure that you also check the dead-end passage and plant explosives. That should be the last explosive charge you need to place for the Hey, Work's on in the Mines! side quest (though you'll still need to go see the appropriate dwarf to complete that quest).

As far as your current quest, now that you have the ingredient you came here for, it is considered complete. You can check behind the final locked door to raid the storeroom and find the Robust Sword of Dol Blathanna (an extremely powerful steel sword) and a bunch of ore, but otherwise it's time to leave the shaft.